Missing All the Signs
by Vesica
Summary: [BtVS&HP] Hello ‘Amazingly Blind Buffy’! Sometime these things just happen and she couldn’t be happier it did. (Buffy&Severus Pairing) COMPLETE


**_Title:_** Missing All the Signs

**_Author:_** Vesica

**_Rating:_** PG-13

**_Fandoms:_** BtVS/HP Crossover****

**_Spoilers:_** Post everything – sometime in the future.

**_Disclaimer:_** I am just borrowing them – I promise to be careful and not spill anything on them.

**_Distribution:_** Twisting the Hellmouth, Tainted Love, FF.net.  All others, please ask first.

**_Pairing:_** Buffy/Severus

**_Genre:_** Romance and perhaps a bit o'fluff. 

**_Author's Note 1:_** Many, many thanks to the betas.  This one was miles outside my comfort zone and the finished product bears little resemblance to what it started as.  So, thanks a million Don, Foxfire and CutiePie!

**_Author's Note 2:_** For Jinni's 2003 TtH Secret Santa Event.  As for the dedication, it can be sung to the tune of 'Happy Birthday to You'.

_Merry Christmas Lunablue!_

_This fic's just for you._

I tried to work in a shag 

_But they really didn't want to!_

~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~

_How did I not see this coming?  There were signs-big, flashing danger signs-and somehow I managed to ignore every one of them.  Then again, I never was great at this whole personal life bit._

Everything had been great.  No more First Evil. No more Hellmouth.  She had even come up with a personal philosophy.  She had stopped believing in fate with a capital 'F'.  No more of that _'One girl in all the world'_ bullshit.  And she swore the first person to dig up some dusty, musty prophecy about her, was going to get smacked senseless with it.    She was her own woman, free to live her own life.  

_I was also terminally bored.  And running like hell, though it took me long enough to figure that out._

That, she realized, was why she had tagged along to England.  Faith and Wood had the Slayerettes – _Slayers_, she corrected herself – under control and training in Cleveland.  Xander and Dawnie were happy to go along, armed with plenty of Giles' Watcher's 'manuals' to keep them yawning.  Last she heard, Angel and company were having a grand old time in L.A., getting used to their new jobs de-eviling the evil law firm.  Who knew what Andrew was up to?  He had freaked and disappeared long ago.__

_I wonder if he playing annoying 'guest-age' to someone else right now.  At least he baked.  That almost made up for…no wait, it really didn't. _

Wherever he was, she had a sneaking suspicion he had probably been having more fun than her at that point.  Willow was busy, keeping the coven on their toes with questions about how best to locate the newly awakened Slayers and theories to test about her newest mojo.  Giles spent the workweeks in London, tidying up 'loose ends', as he had put it, and making preparations to relocate Watcher Central Stateside.  All of which had left her there, alone, for entirely too many hours, in the cottage they had rented.  Fighting the good fight wreaked havoc on one's social life but there was something to be said for keeping busy averting apocalypses.

_It didn't leave time for lots of deep thinking – about the future, about the mistakes of the past.  Good, old, world-threatening evil plots._

The past wasn't troubling her as much those days; that last fight had made a lot of things clearer.  But there were still all those years stretching ahead of her.  Her newly acquired extended life expectancy combined with a sudden lack of impending doom had left her at a bit of a loss.  Money, or the constant lack of, had even ceased to be an issue.  It turned out the Council had their fingers in a lot of pies, a few of them even _legitimate_ business ventures.  She vaguely remembered having hopes and romantic girlish dreams about the future.  But that was lifetimes ago, literally.  She wasn't that girl anymore; she didn't even know that girl anymore.  With all that damn time to think, she had found herself wondering what kind of woman that girl would have become.  What would _she_ have done with her life?  

She had realized that too much thinking like that was a one-way ticket to a loony land, so she walked, a lot.  She walked miles and miles, day or night.  Well, really, if she was honest about it, she had been patrolling but there didn't seem to be a lot of nasties lurking about Devon.  She discovered all kinds of native spooks but they were mostly harmless; brownies, faeries, and even some loner, hold-out Druids.  These were generally a cranky and rude bunch, which she found surprising considering the warmth and kind nature of the coven, but they weren't really evil.   Besides, whatever else they might be including poor representatives of wicca and native belief systems, they were human and therefore non-slayable.

One night, during her 'not patrolling, just out for a wander' walks, she had run into him.  Unfortunately, it was a literal case of 'running into'.

_Goodbye 'Deep Thoughts Buffy', Hello 'Amazingly Blind Buffy'._

It had been a foggy and all together foul night, the kind she was beginning to learn that this part of the world specialized in.  She was skirting the edge of a dense wood; dark forest on one side and rolling grazing land on the other. She had heard a faint sound, a melody drifting on the wind.  She made out voices, airy and feminine.  Curious, she had headed in their direction.

_What I didn't hear was 'Danger! Danger! Run far. Run fast.'  It was there.  I'm sure of it.  And that's where my life took an abrupt detour into destiny-land, into the previously unexplored non-world saving suburb.  Cue the 'something's about to happen' music and roll the clip._

~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~

Drawing closer to the sounds, she heard a new voice, raised in a scream.  Whether of fear or delight she couldn't tell, but either way, it was the most excitement she'd had all week.  Needing no further prompting, she broke into a run, topping the crest of a hill, and promptly falling over someone stretched along the ground.  Tumbling over - _him_ she guessed from the pitch of the muffled 'oof'- she caught a glimpse of tiny, glowing figures, some dancing in a ring of flowers, a few staring at her in alarm.  The thought was abruptly cut short as her head got up close and personal with an inconveniently placed boulder.   

She was a little dazed and the first thing she really noticed was a pale, scowling face – doubly pale for the sea of black surrounding it, inches from her own.  The scowl deepened as she groaned and, quickly gathering her wits, pushed the man away and jumped to her feet.  She was in fighting stance, a stake out and ready before he could move.  His only response was to arch one eyebrow at her defensiveness.  

"That is the most pathetic excuse for a wand I have ever seen," he said dryly.  He slowly stood, brushing himself off, not even considering her enough of a threat to keep an eye on.

"A wand?  Did you just get hit in the head or did you ride the little bus to 'Dark Creature of the Night' school?  It's a stake, Einstein.  You know—poke, poof, any of this ringing a bell?"  Despite the accompanying hand gestures, he still looked lost.  And a little disturbed, though she thought that could have been _because_ of the hand gestures.  She started again. "It's a stake and you're-" she paused, her brain finally catching up to her mouth.  It was a little out of breath, but it managed to wheeze out a rather pertinent observation about her Slayer sense and the total lack of tinglies.  She sighed, "-not a vampire."

The corner of his mouth joined the eyebrow in upward momentum creating an altogether unpleasant sneer. "No, I'm not. What an astute and original observation."  How anyone managed to cram that much disdain into an otherwise calm tone was beyond her. "You were hoping for a vampire to accost?"

"Not accost. Slay."  Before he could make the sarcastic, and she suspected misogynistic, crack she could see coming, she continued, turning the focus back to him.  "What are you doing out here anyway, Tall-Dark-and-Menacing?  Getting your jollies playing Peeping Tom to the naked faerie chicks?  Or are you from the local Ladies Aid, arranging winter coat-and-mitten donations for them, in that charming dress you got going on there?" she asked, eyeing his ensemble critically.

He turned an angry red and actually spluttered.  "They are robes and they were pixies, not faeries.  More importantly, why are you running about in the dark, dangerous middle of nowhere, with that bit of kindling, looking for things to – what was the word you used – slay?"  Clearly he doubted she could scare, let alone slay, anything.  He gave her a contemptuous head-to-toe sweep.    "And so far past your bedtime?"

Luckily, for him, she never got the chance to answer either of those questions.  They both were startled by a deep howl from the direction of the woods.  Other howls sounded in reply, these closer and from various points all around them.

He looked pained, the glare deepening the lines of his face.  "This evening was turning out to be quite disagreeable already. Why, in Merlin's name, must it become more unpleasant?" he growled.

She divided her attention between him and the night beyond.  "I thought there weren't many wolves left in England."  As she spoke, she caught a glimpse of a figure atop the hill she had come tumbling down.  It was only silhouette but it was clear this was no wolf, too large.  "A werewolf?"  She glanced skyward.  "It's only a three-quarter moon."

The man looked almost surprised for a moment.  As quick as it appeared, the look was gone and he resumed glaring.  "Not a werewolf – a pixie."

"I thought you said the cute, glowy things were pixies.  He isn't too cute."

"_He_ is correct.  That is a male pixie—they all have the ability to shapeshift.  While you were napping, you missed the general chaos of pixie maidens abandoning their ritual and running, screaming for safety.  I would assume these are the menfolk, come to defend their clan.  Pixies can be highly territorial and they have even been known to-"

"Not to interrupt, since you clearly love the sound of your own voice, but how do you kill them?"

"Kill them?  Pixies?" he gasped.  One would think she had just suggested eating babies with a smear of jam.

"Never mind. I'll wing it."  She snapped, pulling a short blade from her boot.

"Don't-" he shouted, hovering between panic and annoyance.  "Don't kill the pixies.  It will make things worse."

More figures had appeared on the ridge, pacing restlessly, watching them.  Two leapt into motion, streaking down the hill in tandem, as if at some signal.  

_'Don't kill them' he says – Great_.  He was looking from her to the approaching pixies, clearly agitated by the impending fight.  She couldn't ignore the silent plea, and he did seem to know more than she did about these creatures.  "Fine.  I'll _try_ not to kill them—but I'm not promising anything," she snapped, dropping the knife.

She was ready when they sprang at her, sidestepping the first and catching the other in the ribs with a punch.  The first rolled neatly and circled, teeth snapping at the back of her leg.  Kicking him away, she met the reinforcements that had come to join their fellows.  The rest of the world melted away, as it always did when she fought.  There was only her and her prey, each movement a step in the intricate dance of life and death.  She was dimly aware of the man shouting something.  It wasn't until she turned to see one of the creatures stiffen and fall, a strange light arcing from the twig the man held, that she realized he was fighting with her.  _That would explain the wand crack earlier._

"Enough."  The voice was strong and clear.

Abruptly, it was over.  The creatures stopped fighting, and withdrawing, shimmered for a moment and seemed to shrink, becoming men no bigger than her hand.  The man murmured something, the pixies lying deathly-still suddenly gasped and were helped to their feet by their fellows.  Their attention was focused in the direction of the hill.  She turned and saw another tiny man walking towards them.  He wore the same leafy, tattered garb as the others but he had a tiny circlet of golden leaves around his brow.  _The leader_, she gathered from his bearing and command of the others.

Seeing that none of his men were critically wounded, he turned to them.  "Why have you trespassed here and attacked my people?"

Before she could come up with an explanation, the man lowered his wand and stepped forward.  He gave a little bow.  "Apologies.  I came seeking only the pennyroyal that blooms where your people hold their Litha ritual.  I am sorry to have disturbed the rite."  

"Ah, the pennyroyal, and a wand – a wizard then."  Seeming satisfied with this assessment and the nod he received in reply, he turned to her.  "And you?  You seem young for a hunter of the wee folk.  I sense no magic in you though."

"I, um, heard a shriek and thought someone was in trouble?" her lame explanation coming out as a question.  "But I guess they were happy shrieks?  Sorry 'bout that."

He stared at her for a long moment.  "You ran towards what you thought was trouble?  Curious.  Who, or perhaps _what_, are you, girl?  You fought well against ten of my men – yet you killed none, though I am sure you could have."

"I was kinda of trying not to.  Just defending myself, no big."  When this provoked even more curious looks from both the pixies and the man, she stumbled ahead in her explanation.  "I'm Buffy Summers...Vampire Slayer?  Pixie slaying isn't really part of the M.O."

At this the wee man smiled.  "A Slayer?  It has been many moons since a Slayer last walked our lands.  Please accept my most humble apologies, Warrior," he said with a slight nod.  "Are you here to stop the dark ones, murderers of the wee folk?"

"The dark ones are no more - they were stopped."  The man spoke so quietly she almost missed it.  The wee man, however, did not.

"True, the worst are gone.  But there are a few who still seek to gain power from the death of this land's true children."  They exchanged a long look before the wee man broke the stare.  Pulling a small pouch from his belt, he held it up for her to take.  "Here.  I believe this is what you were seeking.   Perhaps we will meet again Slayer.  I and mine will rest easier knowing one of the Light Warriors walks the night.  Merry meet, Lady. Wizard."

She took the bag hesitantly.  "Thanks."

The wizard stepped up beside her, and giving a little bow murmured, "And merry part."  When he shot a look at her, she echoed the words.

Smiling broadly, the wee man bowed in response.  "And merry meet again."  He gathered his men with a look and they shifted back into wolf form.  Casting a final look back, they turned and loped back to the wood.

"I believe that is mine."

She jumped, having forgotten the man standing next to her, as he reached to take the pouch from her palm.  Reflexively her hand closed around it.

"How do you figure?  He gave it to me." He gave her a dark look, which she ignored.  "So you're a wizard?  Figures.  You're cranky enough to be one of those Druids."

Pocketing the pouch, she turned to go.  He moved to block her path, seeming particularly annoyed by the Druid remark.

"You nearly got us set upon by a band of angry pixies," he barked.  Seeing her jaw clench, he softened his tone a little.   "The least you could do is give me the pennyroyal, which you have no use for.  No need be peevish about it." 

She thought about it for a moment.    "Nope.  Can't be sure you're not going to use it to conjure up some ancient evil that I'll have to chase down and fight to the death."  She stepped past him and started towards home.  He caught her arm as she passed, fingers digging into her arm.  She looked him directly in the eye.  "If you want to keep those, I advise letting go.  Look, come by the cottage across from Miller's Field tomorrow.  Let Willow and the coven check you out and if they give the thumbs up, the pouch is all yours.  Now, if you don't mind."

He looked furious but wisely let her go.  "Tomorrow then," he snapped, before turning with a melodramatic flourish of his robes and stalking off.

~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~

_That had been a terrible beginning, suspiciously terrible.  Danger Sign One: Disliking each other at first sight._

He had come to the cottage the next day, submitting to Willow and the coven's pokings, glowering all the while.  Willow seemed particularly curious about his wand, questioning him about it after the coven had pronounced him 'not evil' and headed home.  They had learned his name, Severus Snape, after an inordinate amount of badgering.

_Though that didn't stop me from calling him Grumpy in my head.  _

He was not easy to talk to, though she suspected he was trying to make it difficult.  They were still prying details out of him when Giles arrived home.  There had been a tense moment then, Giles surprised and somewhat displeased to find the strange man there.  Giles had slipped into parental, protective mode, asking all the vital questions neither of them thought to ask.  Important things like 'What do you do?', 'Where are you from?' and 'What brings you here?'.

_We were too busy trying not to strangle him to get around to those questions._

Severus informed them he was a professor, potions master, at a boarding school for the magically inclined and was in Devon doing a bit of research during the summer holiday.  That said, he returned the favor, asking Giles a number of intrusive questions, which her former Watcher had answered as vaguely as possible.  What had been a conversation became a battle of wills, each man trying to drag as much information as possible from the other.

She had nearly made Willow choke on her tea when she caught her eye and pantomimed dogs growling at each other, pointing at the interrogation in progress.  Willow giggled, quickly dampening her mirth when Giles dragged her back into the discussion.  Just when the girls were about to shove them both outside to settle this the hard way, Severus mentioned a colleague, whom Giles had met during his time at Oxford.  She hadn't known whether to laugh or cry when Giles actually called the woman, asking a few terse questions, before handing the phone to Severus.  Severus looked terribly uncomfortable, no wonder with three people staring holes in him, giving new meaning to the phrase 'brusque manner' with his side of the conversation.  Giles reclaimed the phone and asked a few final questions.  Hanging up, he seemed satisfied, agreeing with the coven's 'not evil' assessment. 

Despite the cross-examination, they somehow persuaded Severus to stay for tea, during which he was almost civil, interested to hear about their adventures.  Eventually conversation turned to their meeting the night before.  Giles was quite interested to hear about the 'dark ones' the pixie leader had mentioned.  Severus mentioned a few rumors he had heard, hinting his presence in Devon was for more than some moonlit ritual.  The two men regarded each other, neither believing the other was telling the whole story.  After a bit more silly circling and mutual suspicion, he and Giles decided to trust each other.  Pooling their information, as well as that of the coven with another quick call, a few locations and groups worth looking into were identified.  It was decided that Severus and Buffy should work together – muscle and magic – and investigate.

_Danger Sign Two: Being forced to work together.  It had seemed a logical solution at the time.  The logic should have been Danger Sign Two and Half.  _

While she hadn't admitted it, she had been kinda happy to have some new evil to stop, though there were days that Severus' grumping made her miss her previous boredom.  At least that had been quiet.  They found the wizards, up to no good, and turned them over to the proper authorities.  She was surprised to learn there were proper authorities for that sort of thing but Severus had connections to a whole community of magical folk.  They took care of their own it seemed – good and bad – and it made a nice change, more detection than Slaying.  With the prosecution side covered, they simply had to find them.  Of course, that wasn't exactly easy.  Locating the 'dark ones' took time and a lot of patience, with endless days of traveling and covertly poking about.

_And I thought stake-outs were boring.  At least I didn't have to amuse myself – I just annoyed Severus into amusing me.  Telling me stories was easier than listening to me whining.  _

Severus proved to be, if not good company, at least a tolerable companion.  He was genuinely fascinated by her stories of Slaying, though she figured out that it was mainly out of malicious anticipation, learning things he could later rub in the face of another professor at the school.  He told her stories about the wizarding world and about the great evil sorcerer that had been recently defeated.  They had established a camaraderie – a sort of bonding of battle-hardened soldiers.  Sure, she had always been on the side of good but they still had many of the same regrets.  The ones they couldn't save, the mistakes they should have paid for instead of yet another innocent bystander.  Both of them were resigned and more than a little fed up with forces larger than them calling the shots.  Besides she had been through this whole supporting someone seeking redemption thing before; it was beginning to feel like a sort of theme with her.  So he had killed a few people – who hadn't?  What was the joke about her friends and body counts?  He seemed a little unnerved by her nonchalance at what he obviously thought were some of the worst acts ever committed.  Then again, she was taken aback at his curt assessment of the whole Watcher/Slayer relationship.  He had painted the doctrine of Slayer isolation, the eons of Slayers doing their duty and getting only really dead for their loyalty, and the obsessive control by the Watcher's Council as a particularly daft and unproductive way to fight evil.  Not that she disagreed, not at all; he had practically taken the words out of her mouth.  

_Well except that 'daft' part.  I would never have use the word 'daft'._

She simply hadn't expected to hear her own views from someone who hadn't lived it with her.  She certainly hadn't really expected this man who knew nothing of her life or calling to understand so well.  

_Danger Sign Three: Bonding over mutual interests and/or angst.  The whole thing had started to play out like a soap opera.  Without the evil twin or amnesia plot lines._

She wasn't sure when things changed between them – perhaps it was so subtle it snuck up on them both.  Or perhaps neither was paying the least bit of attention.  It had probably been there for quite a while.  Without really trying, they had slowly become friends of a sort.  Looking back, it was easy to pinpoint the exact moment when it became startlingly clear just what sort that was. 

They had been hanging around Scotland, in the remains of a castle that seemed ready to fall down around their ears.  There were rumors that a dark sorcerer had bound a banshee to do his will.  So here they were, freezing in drafty ruins, waiting for the ghostie to show up.  The weather had been especially dreary and the constant gray, drizzle was making her gloomy.  The third quiet night in a row found her sitting atop the only remaining tower staring at the few stars peeking through the clouds.  

_Danger Sign Four: A romantic setting especially when romance is the last thing on your mind._

She had been sitting there for hours, lost in the same old wonderings about the future, about what to do with her life now that it was her own.  A quiet step made her turn.  Severus stood there, looking a little awkward, with a few blankets draped over one arm and two steaming cups.  Handing her a cup and a blanket, he mumbled something about not catching cold.  She sniffed the concoction in her cup warily – it smelled faintly herb-y.

"I'm not trying to poison you." he grumbled. "It's a warming potion.  I made a few changes based on your reaction last time."

The last one had tasted awful.  She had barely been able to choke it down but it had worked, making her feel toasty from the inside out.  She took a cautious sip.

"Wow.  It's not vile!" He flinched at that, making her regret her tendency to say whatever popped into her head.  Meeting his eye, she smiled warmly.  "I mean, it's wonderful—no medicine taste at all.  And so chocolaty.  You are a potions genius! Warmth and a mean chocolate fix in one!  You'll have every female at that school after you to brew them a cup!"

He looked a little uncomfortable with the praise.  "Somehow I doubt that.  Just drink up before you get pneumonia.  You've been doing an alarming amount of sniffling lately."

"And a sick Slayer is a cranky Slayer, just ask Willow and Giles how not fun I am when I'm sick."  She had intentionally kept her tone light but Severus seemed to be in no mood for joking.  She motioned for him to move closer, where they could provide a wind break for each other.  "Thank you for the potion."

His only response was a brief nod, his attention on the sky above them.  After sitting in silence for a bit, she found herself talking – more to herself than him.    There was only one more place to check out after this and the question of what she would do next was looming.  It felt good to say what she had been thinking for so long but it wasn't easy.  For once, she was glad for his taciturn ways; she didn't think she would be able to get it all out if he had interrupted.  He listened to her babble on about all the fear and angst.  She sniffled a little, laughed at herself a little and basically had a full-on breakdown on him.  Eventually, she boiled it down to the heart of the problem.

"What do you do after you win?  You know, the Big One.  The battle you've spent your whole life fighting?"

"I don't know."  It was a simple statement but the way he said it made her breath catch.  He turned at her little gasp and she felt like she was looking in a mirror.  The terror, the lost look, the unanswered plea for a new mission, clouded his face like a shroud.  Looking back, she still had no idea why she did what she did.  She reached out, brushing a strand of hair from his face, her hand lingering on his cheek.  He looked a little startled at the intimacy but that quickly changed to shock as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.  For a moment, all the noise inside her head quieted and the fear, which was with her so constantly she had stopped noticing, vanished.  The moment passed and she pulled away, settling herself back under her blanket.  He refused to look at her directly and so she looked back up at the sky, pretending not to see him watching her out of the corner of his eye.  

Needing to say something, she answered.  "I don't know either."

It wasn't an incredible kiss.  The earth didn't move; she didn't hear music or anything.  There wasn't a violent unleashing of passion or shagging by starlight.  

_At least we weren't that clichéd.  No thanks to the Powers that Be with their stupid, twinkling stars and perfect cuddling weather._

It just was what it was—a gentle kiss between two people looking for themselves, their purpose—and it was enough.  They still had a job to do and it provided some welcome distraction.  Obviously not enough distraction, because by the time the last 'dark one' was in custody, there was a deep bond between them.   They were a pair, a hesitant pair, but together in a way neither could deny, and moving blindly towards couple hood.   Neither seemed sure where it was all going – and that was okay.  

Now, a month later, that tower was a world away and she sat on a warm, sunlit verandah overlooking the Mediterranean.  They had decided to spend the remainder of his break traveling Europe together, gathering rare potion ingredients.  She was still the muscle of the mission – proving her worth more than once, as rare seemed to be synonymous with 'dangerous to obtain'.  They didn't talk too much about the future or what was ahead.  It seemed to be taking care of itself without them talking it to death.  Most of the relationship had unfolded that way, each new phase seeming as natural as breathing when it happened.  They moved from somewhat hostile strangers to friends to timid sweethearts to lovers slowly but without fanfare.

_Okay, maybe there was a little fanfare when we got around to the lovers part.  These British professors must get a lot more exercise than the ones back home.  Either that or the whole robe thing is a diversionary tactic – who would have guessed he was built under all that flapping black cloth.  Or that he would look so good in Italian leather—Hooray for duty free shopping!_

His boss, _Headmaster_ she heard him correct, had invited her to come to the school and help teach some defense class.  Severus assured her she was far more competent than the current professor and would greatly benefit the students.  She couldn't envision herself as a teacher, all stern authority figure-like.  Would she have to wear robes?  She didn't think she could kick butt in billowy robes.

She felt a soft touch on her shoulder and turned to find him looking at her concerned.

"Buffy, are you all right?  You seem lost in thought."

"I'm fine.  A little lonely…," she hinted, wiggling her eyebrows.    He joined her on the bench and she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Settling his arm around her waist and they sat drinking in the sunset.  

"As long as you weren't counting 'danger signs' again, trying to figure out how you missed all them all." 

_Damn.  Too bad she had stopped counting danger signs because that whole mind reading thing had to be one of them_, she thought, rolling her eyes.

He poked her side, tickling a laugh out of her.  "You were, weren't you? I heard that eye roll.  What I am going to do with you, my little phoenix?" he murmured, kissing the top of her head.  "Enjoy the moment a little.  Enough deep thinking."

What he didn't say is he was dreading the start of the new term as much as she was and for all their careful ignoring of it, it was still only a couple of weeks away.  Maybe she would go with him; maybe she wouldn't.  Deep down she suspected she would.  Dawn was happy in her Watcher training, the gang keeping an eye on her.  While the rational part of her refused to overanalyze this thing between Severus and herself, part of her knew the truth.  They had started off too badly, the circumstances too much larger than themselves, and every moment of this felt too right.  

_Stupid Powers that Be! She wondered…_

"Sev, do you suppose the Powers that Be have Owlmail?  I still have a few bones to pick with them."

He chuckled and she closed her eyes, enjoying feeling his amusement reverberate through her.  He didn't laugh enough.  Nudging him with her hip, she teased, "I was serious!  They practically tossed us at each other; I resent that!  I am perfectly capable of getting a 'honey' without heaven and earth plotting for me.  I think they owe me an apology, maybe a fruit basket or something." 

This only made him laugh harder. "You're not intimidated by anything, are you?  Beautiful and fearless—you are a dangerous woman, Buffy Summers."

"That's me. Dangerous, alluring, _femme fatale_," she purred.  Then her stomach growled loudly,  ruining her façade.  "And, obviously, an underfed one at that.  Come on, Grumpy—let's walk into town and get some grub."

She might not believe in Fate anymore, but that didn't mean it was done with her just yet. 

**_~FINIS~_**


End file.
